


a moment apart

by kay_okay



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Wedding, Weddings, getting married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 16:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18553180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_okay/pseuds/kay_okay
Summary: I have always known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.





	a moment apart

**Author's Note:**

> title lifted from ["a moment apart" by odesza](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xarC5jAiO7w). which is also the album name and probably one of the finest pieces of music in its entirety, please give it a listen and cry along with me thanks.
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes left are my own.
> 
> thank you so much to cait [@commonemergency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/) for not only looking this over for me but her constant support, it means so much to me. this took me about 1.5 million years to finish and she was with me the whole way. <3 and to j [@velleitees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleitees/pseuds/velleitees) for your support early on!

  
  
  


It’d been Dan’s idea, which surprised Phil. He thought Dan might’ve considered it too cliche, wrapped up too nicely in a bow when Dan always wanted to be a little different, a little unexpected.

Phil blames post-orgasm haze that makes him agree to it so quickly, miles of Dan’s glistening skin pressed up against him as he floats the idea at Phil. They’d talked about marriage of course, for years and years now, so many times that it’d actually dropped off Phil’s radar. He just assumed they do it eventually, when they were ready. Wait until the time felt right, go to a Register Office on a random weekday, sign some papers, be married. 

_ But that’s what’ll be the big surprise, Philly,  _ Dan had said that night in bed. _ No one will expect us to do it like this. _

And Phil couldn’t argue with that.

  
  
  
  
  


There’s a hotel overlooking the exact cliffs they were on in their photos from Portugal all those years ago. Phil is in their kitchen when he hears Dan on the phone to them one afternoon at the end of February, stirring soy milk into his coffee and watching it swirl like a pinwheel, changing the color from black to a warm, caramel brown.  _ Yes, fairly small, _ he hears Dan answer, shuffling papers they’d been poring over last night in their lounge and presumably picking up the list they’d populated —  _ Only about fifty guests. No, no timeline. Just sometime this year. _

Dan appears around their kitchen door, phone pressed to his ear but mouthpiece turned away. He looks at Phil expectantly — “There’s a cancellation the last Saturday in June. Do we want it?”

Phil pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Dan’s framed by the backlight of their window, late winter rain trailing down the panes, trying valiantly to hold off the coming spring. Phil can’t remember if that groundhog in America saw its shadow or not, or if that meant more or less winter, but it’s seemed to drag on forever this year. 

He doesn’t want to wait anymore, doesn’t see the need. 

“Tell them we’ll take it.”

  
  
  
  
  


“A real wedding? I thought you lot said you’d rather eat glass than be surrounded by hundreds of people all staring at you stood up there and declaring your love for each other.”

Martyn’s teasing, smiling into his teacup as Phil rolls his eyes. “One could argue that’s what we did on our tour every night but that’s neither here nor there,” Phil mutters into his own coffee mug, “Anyway, it’s not hundreds. And maybe that was the plan once, something private with just us, you and Corn, our families, but now…” Phil trails off. 

If Dan were here he’d know how to articulate the natural progression to this once-terrifying idea of sharing something as vulnerable and unpredictable as a wedding with more than just their relatives. How they just looked at each other one morning after breakfast and Phil felt it inside him like a tidal wave, an absolute tsunami of unheard proportions wearing down everything in his chest cavity. Dan eating the last of his toast with marmalade in one hand, typing on his phone with the other, curls disheveled and chest bare, crumbs on his chin and lips dry and cracked, cheeks pinked and eyes tired and Phil knew it then, down, down, down past his bones and into his marrow that he wanted to marry this person in front of everyone he knew and maybe even a few hundred, a few thousand people he didn’t know, he really wasn’t picky at this point, not at all. 

“But now?” Martyn asks. 

_ I’m in,  _ he’d said, the morning after Dan pitched it to him that night in bed. He agreed to Dan’s idea of an actual ceremony, a reception, the whole nine,  _ the tuxes, the flowers, the bound-to-be-epic wedding cake. I want it all if it means you’ll marry me. _

Phil had said it strong and honest but full of raw emotion, a wavering voice and a hummingbird-winged heartbeat. Dan had looked up from his phone, just through his eyelashes, leveled a gaze across the table. 

Phil held it for as long as he could, let the storm build in his chest until he thought he’d burst. But Dan looked away first, his mouth shaping around a small, content sound as he smiled, bit down into his toast and marmalade like Phil hadn’t just poured his guts out over breakfast.

_ The wedding cake is going to be fucking epic,  _ Dan agreed, still looking at his phone. But Phil saw the pink dusted across his chest, climbing up his neck to his cheeks, and Dan smiled.  _ And for the record I’ll marry you regardless of if it’s in front of a thousand people or none at all. _

He’d pushed Dan back into their bedroom after that, toast and marmalade still in his hand that he dropped in the hallway, laughing hysterically. 

But now, Phil looks up at Martyn. He’s stopped stirring his coffee and is staring back with intent at Phil, who’s probably been lost in his thoughts for a few seconds too long. Phil’s mind comes back online and he’s surprised to feel a tightness in his throat, a prickle in the corner of an eye that he blinks away. 

“I can think of nothing else I’d rather do.”

  
  
  
  
  


They pick out plain silver rings together, they’re not strangers to romance. They don’t match because they can’t agree on anything, so Phil’s is a standard band, but Dan’s is thinner with a small twist in the top. They shop separately early on a Saturday morning, opposite ends of a mom and pop jewelry store tucked in a corner of Lisbon one weekend they’re in Portugal meeting their wedding coordinator. 

“You get something good?” Dan asks, pretending to not be interested as they exit the shop together, matching tiny plastic bags in their hands. 

“Yeah, the associate found this gigantic sapphire bracelet with matching earrings for me. It’ll really bring out my eyes,” Phil answers without missing a beat. Dan bursts out laughing, punching Phil in the shoulder repeatedly, yelling as Phil dissolves into giggles, ducking away and running down the road. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Is this really meant to be enjoyable?” Phil’s voice carries over the divider of his changing room. “Trying on these clothes for hours that all look the same and that you literally can’t tell apart? I’d rather be endlessly pounding my head against a brick wall.” 

“You’re supposed to be getting ready for the best day of your life, Phil,” Dan grunts through the wall, and it sounds to Phil like he’s trying in vain to zip up a pair of too-tight trousers. “You could at least pretend to be mildly into it.” 

Phil opens his changing room door and steps out into the aisle, dim overhead lights of the suit shop changing area shining into the surrounding mirrors on the wall. He looks over at Dan’s room as it opens, and he steps out.

“I promise I’m into it, this is just the third shop we’ve been in today and we haven’t found anything. Also I still haven’t had any Starbucks.” 

Dan ignores him, rolling his eyes and turning around to catch his reflection behind him. The slate-coloured trousers are definitely too tight — he manages to still make them look flattering but Phil can tell he’s incredibly uncomfortable.

“They’re a nice pattern,” Phil says rather tentatively, a little concerned Dan might be just as frustrated as him but bottling it in. 

“No, no,” Dan sighs, already popping the button at his waist before he’s even back in his changing room. “Forget it. I just have one more suit left and then we can go.”

Dan closes the door behind him before Phil has a chance to say anything else. He feels instantly guilty, kicks himself for letting his frustration show and not thinking about how it’d make Dan feel. 

He looks at his own reflection in the mirrors, black suit too big, boxy and rough, his socked feet mismatched but bright colours seemingly more muted than usual. Phil feels out of his element and like a stranger in his own skin, suddenly more nervous than he’s ever been about this wedding. 

When he’s changed and back in the aisle, Dan’s door is still closed.

“You okay in there?” Phil asks softly. “How’s it going?” There’s no answer, and it’s another handful of seconds before Dan emerges. 

It's a fitted black suit, medium white lines crisscrossing the immaculately-pressed fabric in a wide-patterned grid. The jacket’s unbuttoned, crisp white dress shirt underneath, haphazardly fastened and tucked only in the front. He’s left the top three undone, bright white pearled buttons hanging off the lapel like three dots of an ellipses, pointing at Phil and drawing him in little by little.

He looks fucking incredible, and Phil’s a little dumbstruck, comment caught in his dry throat like a tossed-about tumbleweed.

“Um —” 

Dan looks up, drops his hands from where he was about to keep buttoning the shirt. He doesn’t notice, or at least he has the courtesy to pretend not to. “How’s it? Okay?”

Then, because Dan  _ doesn’t  _ actually have any courtesy at all, he does a little half-spin on his bare feet on the cold tile. He points his rear at Phil, glances over his shoulder, lifts the bottom hem. “Do I look all right?” He plants his feet, and Phil drags his eyes away from the curved lines of Dan’s frame for long enough to see Dan’s hidden smile, tucked away behind his shoulder.

“What do you think, Phil? Do my trousers fit?”

Phil didn’t know how to explain the feeling he got when he first met Dan, when he saw his face across a crowded train station and not through a screen. How it felt to wake up next to him for the first time, to kiss him for the first time, to be…  _ with _ him the first time. How those feelings dulled eventually, still sharp with love but into the kind of familiarity that settles somewhere deep behind his ribcage, nestled next to his heart and over the pit of his stomach. The pull Phil still gets when he sees him today.

He walks right up to Dan, long strides of long legs down the deserted aisle of darkened changing rooms, grips hard at the waistband of the trousers and spins Dan on his heel. Rest of the store be damned, it’s midday on a nondescript Tuesday and Phil wants to kiss his fiancée’s face right the fuck now.

His lips are on Dan’s immediately. Phil’s hands cradle his face both delicately and insistently, thumbs tracing thoughtful arcs under the purple shadows that’ve found their way below Dan’s eyes in the last few weeks. Dan’s surprised, a muffled yelp turning into a broken plea when Phil opens his mouth, deepens the kiss to slide his tongue in alongside Dan’s. It gets Dan in close, a hand slid up under Phil’s jumper to clutch feverishly at the smooth skin of Phil’s back. 

It’s over as soon as it started, Phil pulling his lips away harshly but staying tauntingly close. Dan whimpers in spite of himself, chases Phil’s lips that left him behind.

Phil lays his forehead against Dan’s, nips aimlessly against the parched skin at his bottom lip. 

“Get the suit.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Sometime in early May, they have their first wedding fight. It's about flowers and centerpieces and Phil doesn’t really follow based on Dan’s end of the phone conversation. Dan wanted white anemones with black centers for the middle of the tables, all the florist had were white daisies with dark purple centers. Phil hates it when Dan gets this upset, it makes him feel awful that he can’t help and Dan always ends up feeling awful, too. 

Dan’s muttering that daisies look cheap and gaudy and  _ I called two months ago and you seemed to have it then  _ all haughty under his breath while he ends the call. Phil digs his keys out of his pocket and sighs gustily at the same time.

“Does it really matter, Dan?”

He might not even know he says it out loud, pointed toward the door and walking up the stairs, hitching the Tesco bag with groceries to his other elbow. He doesn’t even realise Dan isn’t behind him until he’s halfway up.

Phil peers down the stairs through the open door to the street. “Dan?”

Dan’s stood stark still, black silhouette against the bright backdrop of the road behind him, phone white-knuckled in his hand and eyes shielded by dark sunglasses.

“ _ Does it really matter? _ ” Dan asks, repeating Phil’s rhetorical question with one of his own. “No, I guess it doesn’t Phil. Nothing does at this point.”

He’s already walking calmly up the stairs, lifting his sunglasses to sit in the fluffy curls at the crown of his head. His voice and gait are calm, poised and precise like Phil’s a pile of broken glass to walk around, something to be irritated by, to avoid.

“Dan—” He starts, but it’s too late. Dan steps over the threshold without a second look back, a beeline into their bedroom where he softly closes the door behind him. 

Phil lets out a gusty breath. “ _ Fuck.”  _ It’s never good when Dan’s this calm.

He doesn’t come out by the time the sun’s started to set, when they’d usually start getting dinner together either by browsing the delivery sites or seeing what they can cobble together from the contents of their fridge. His third text of the hour goes unanswered —  _ new gbbo want to get indian and watch it?  _ — and after a while Phil’s mood starts to shift from anxious and worried to annoyed and indignant.

_ Fuck it,  _ Phil thinks to himself, switching off the telly that he wasn’t really watching anyway and heading for the guest bathroom, not wanting to even approach the threshold of their bedroom. 

He feels better after he strips off his clothes, gets under a piping hot stream of water that fills the bathroom in a low-hanging cloud of thick steam. It feels therapeutic, deep breaths in and out through his lungs calming him down little by little. Phil has to admit he feels a touch guilty stealing a rounded dollop of Dan’s expensive face wash, but the scent of lavender and tea tree oil filling the small space seems to work out the tiniest bit of tension.

Phil hears the bathroom door open and close. He doesn’t acknowledge anything, rinsing his face and reaching at the rim of the tub for his shampoo. It startles him when the shower door opens and he feels Dan climb in behind him. 

He's still cross, hasn't had enough time by himself yet to fully let the anger dissipate, so he doesn’t bother turning around. When Dan reaches around him to grab the shampoo out of his hand, Phil bristles. 

“What are you doing in here?” Phil asks, voice flat. He ignores the fact that Dan’s nicked the shampoo and reaches for his body wash, something floral and creamy.

“I decided I was done ignoring you.”

“Oh, did you?” Phil laughs, hollowly. 

“You know I’m not just marrying you for the wedding, right? I mean, please tell me that's not an actual thought in your head.”

The question takes him aback. It’s accusatory, sharp-tongued and sarcastic, loaded like an arrowhead drawn back from Dan’s bow and waiting to snap if Phil says the wrong answer. 

“It’s not that,” Phil answers. There's a long break of calculated silence before he continues, gathering his thoughts to shake the cross feeling. He tips his hair under the shower head and sighs frustratedly. “I just... You get so stressed. I don't know why some things are such a big deal. What material the tablecloths are made out of, what colour the napkins are, what kind of flowers. It doesn't make a difference.”

“Oh, it doesn’t?” Dan’s voice pitches up, echoes off the tiles and it’s like an alarm goes off in Phil’s brain, the strings on the bow tighten —  _ warning, warning, incorrect response, abort the mission.  _

“Of course it  _ matters  _ Dan, that’s not what I mean—”

“So what do you mean then?”

“I don’t know, Dan! I don’t know what I mean.”

“I don’t either, Phil, and you can’t seem to articulate it so I have to try and make my own conclusions. Maybe you’re doubting getting into this. Maybe you’re having second thoughts. Maybe you think being married isn’t for you.” The  _ married to me  _ is silent, but Phil hears it. “Maybe not even just now, maybe not ever.”

It’s like a firing squad, every bullet point Dan lists is like another shot ringing out against Phil’s ears and puncturing his chest one by one. He’s turned around by now, sees Dan shrunken back against the tiles. One hand still grips the shampoo bottle, the other braced against the wall of the shower for support. Dan’s eyes are averted, his voice fast and loud, like if he gets through this quick enough, Phil’s answer confirming everything he thinks he knows will hurt less.

“You think I don’t want to marry you?”

Phil aims for neutral — not cross or indignant, not insulted or hurt. His voice is soft enough to barely be heard. Dan doesn’t answer right away, and it’s the longest ten seconds of Phil’s life, shower spraying between them, a cascading waterfall echoing off the tiles like a raucous symphony in an empty hall. 

“Call it cliché, but I’ve thought about this day for a long time, even before we decided to do this. I’ve thought about what it would be like, standing there next to you in front of everyone we know.” Dan still isn’t looking at him, and every word that drops from Dan’s mouth in that quiet, hurt voice is a tiny knife to Phil’s heart. 

“So, yes Phil, I’ve thought about silly shit like what colour the napkins will be and what kind of flowers I want.” Dan finally raises his head, his chin lifts, his eyes focus in as they connect with Phil’s. “We promised so many years ago to communicate better and I feel like we’re not doing that.”

Phil doesn’t have an answer, doesn’t think he can physically get his voice around the tennis ball of emotion in his throat. He thought Dan was the one letting petty shit about the wedding rile him up, but it’s been the other way around the whole time. 

Phil reaches for the shampoo bottle gently, cautiously. Like a cornered hiker approaching a wild animal, he tugs the bottle out of Dan’s clenched fist and pops the cap.

The sound knocks something loose in Dan. His eyes aren’t flashing anymore, but there’s heat there, cautious and calculated as he watches Phil. 

A small swirl of shampoo in his hand, Phil gives the bottle back to Dan and glides his palms together to make a sudsy foam. He doesn’t look away when he steps closer, pushes his fingers into the thick curls of Dan’s hair, working the shampoo through sweaty tangles acquired from running errands all day in warm spring air. They’re quiet for a long time, Phil working through Dan’s hair until he turns them around, tips the crown of Dan’s head into the stream of warm water and lets the shampoo drip down his body like paint down a fresh canvas.

When Dan opens his eyes, Phil’s already there in his gaze, cradling the back of Dan’s head with shaking hands. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you today,” Phil murmurs, voice thin over the water streaming between them. “I’m sorry if I made you feel in any way that this is not one hundred percent what I want. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Dan’s eyes are rounded in the center, pointed at the ends. Glossy half-moons that sparkle in the low light of their bathroom, staring at Phil from behind a silkscreen of shower steam.

“This has just been a lot at once,” Phil admits. He drops his eyes and bites his lip, his tell that he’s nervous and anxious. His hands slide to hold at Dan’s, fingers that fit so well together and interlock automatically. “Thinking about what all this means and what might happen after. I’m sorry I haven’t always known what to say. Or how to express myself.”

Dan’s body softens involuntarily. The tension dissipates, the anger melts. He feels his own arms lift to circle around Phil’s shoulders, satisfied with what he’s heard but knowing Phil isn’t done.

“But I have always known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, Dan. Since the day I met you, if I’m being honest,” Phil says, quiet and low, holding each other under a stream of warm water. “And nothing will ever change that.”

Phil watches Dan’s eyes shift — attentive, accepting, acquiescent, amused. He holds his breath when Dan’s mouth arranges itself into a small smile.

Dan pops the cap on the shampoo bottle in his hand, squeezes a swirl into his palm. “C’mere. It’s your turn.”   
  
  
  
  


 

The day they’re supposed to leave for Portugal, Phil realises he hasn’t done about ninety-five percent of the things he’d wanted to accomplish. He’s frantic around the flat, has made at least four checklists, including a duplicate of the first which ended up in the wash and he had to pick out in pieces from the machine. 

“Dan, did you call your mum and ask her to come up and look in on the plants after the wedding while we’re on holiday?” 

Dan hears Phil’s voice from across the flat, probably half under the bed frame, if he has to guess. The muffled acoustics give Dan the mental image of Phil stretched across the carpet trying to tug something like one coloured sock or his favorite sweatpants up from the floor and no doubt shove into his overstuffed suitcase. Rather than shout back, Dan makes his way towards the voice.

“Yeah, she said that’s fine—” Dan starts, but Phil gets startled at the sudden closeness of Dan’s voice and jumps, knocks his head on the slats of the bed, lets out a groan.

“Oi, you scared me!” He whines and tries to back out gracelessly on his stomach, crawling like a disoriented crab on an ocean floor. Dan takes pity on him and crouches, yanking at an ankle.

Phil and a bright blue jumper thread out from under the bed in a long line, fabric clutched in his fist triumphantly. Phil rolls over onto his back and holds it up proudly in one motion. “Got it.”

Dan stays crouched next to Phil’s form, hands on his knees. “Lucky I was here or you could’ve been stuck under there for days and missed your own wedding.”

Phil sits up, red-faced and disheveled and glasses askew on his nose. Suddenly he’s eye-level and he lifts his hand, fitting it lightly to Dan’s jaw. Phil tugs in and pecks a kiss at Dan’s lips, chaste and soft but lingering. “My hero.”

He uses Dan’s shoulder to push himself to standing, whistling a tune as he leaves the room to keep packing for Portugal. Phil grins when he looks over his shoulder to see Dan looking dazed, palm pressed to his lips and eyes unfocused.

  
  
  
  
  


It doesn’t happen often. Usually only when he’s alone, if Dan’s away visiting his mum or his brother or even just in the lounge in the middle of the night playing too much Mario Kart while Phil tries to will himself to sleep, tossing and turning for hours until he sees the sun come up. But sometimes, late at night in bed, Phil worries. 

He supposes he’s allowed a free pass tonight, given it’s the less than twelve hours before his wedding and in an unfamiliar (albeit grand and unbelievably luxurious) hotel suite instead of his own comfortable bed back home.

_ Are you awake? _

The reply takes less than a minute, a swift  _ no  _ that Phil can practically hear in Dan’s flat voice. He ignores it and presses on.

_ I can’t sleep _

_ you mean you AREN’T texting in your sleep again? thank god _

Phil rolls his eyes and sends the demon face emoji.  _ What are you doing?  _

They’d both shot down the idea of staying in separate rooms the night before the wedding, but too wired to sleep, Dan had said he’d be in the lounge a little longer when Phil had shuffled off to bed. That was an hour and a half ago.

_ i’m watching videos on youtube about the great barrier reef and how we’re killing it slowly _

_ That sounds uplifting _

Dan texts him a Vox video that’s only eight minutes long. Turns out it’s not entirely hopeless at this point, but it’s not looking good.

_ There’s still a chance, Danny  _ he texts.  _ Still time to save Nemo _

_ not if us humans have anything to say about it  _

Phil swipes over to Twitter, opens Cute Emergency and finds his favorite video, sends the link to Dan. A brown and white dog with gigantic ears trying valiantly to get a head of cabbage off a countertop.

_ maymo the beagle is a good boye and nothing can change my mind not even and entire kitchen covered in cabbage leaves _

Phil grins.  _ He’s the best boye. I’d feed him all the cabbage he wanted. _

_ you’re going to spoil our future dogs aren’t you? and then i’ll be the one who has to clean it up _

_ That’s the beauty of parenting.  _

It’s a while before Dan writes again. Phil hears video game sound effects through the wall, Dan shouting at Fortnite on his laptop every few minutes and cursing as he dodges virtual bullets. When the noises die down, Phil’s phone pings again.

_ why can’t you sleep _

Dan had given him time to say it on his own, and when it didn’t come, he’d asked. He knows Phil better than Phil knows himself, most days.

He doesn’t even consider beating around the bush.  _ I’m worried about the wedding. _

_ why?  _ Dan asks.  _ i thought that was my sole responsibility to work myself into an anxious frenzy over everything making a big deal out of something small that will end up inevitably working out anyway _

The corner of Phil’s mouth quirks at Dan’s attempt to make the situation light.  _ besides,  _ Dan continues,  _ it’s literally tomorrow. there’s nothing else to worry about except your groom not showing up and spoiler alert i have a hunch that isn’t going to happen _

It’s stupid, but that floods warm through Phil’s chest. 

_ It’s not that, obviously _

_ then?  _

Phil bites his lip, turns on his side with his phone still clutched in his hand.  _ Then  _ what? Why can’t he spit it out? What’s he worried about, what’s he afraid of? He doesn’t know how to verbalise the hundreds of pairs of eyes he imagines staring at them tomorrow, the public sharing of something they’ve worked very hard at keeping very private, locked away between themselves for so long that Phil thinks maybe he never really considered anything different. He’d thought he’d known he wanted this, thought he was ready to cross that real line, unlock and open an invisible threshold into a new life outside everything he knew how to handle. He’d thought with Dan next to him he’d be ready for anything, but all he feels is a racing heart and a mind that won’t quiet.

He takes too long to think about it. So long he turns over on his other side, fluffs his pillow, turns back over. He tries to get comfortable and every time he stops he stares at the blinking cursor in the text box with no idea what to say.

Before Phil can answer, there’s a soft knock at the door. 

Dan peeks his head around the edge of the frame as he pushes it open, soft blue halo backlighting his fluffed curls from the dimmed lights in the lounge. He carefully crosses the darkened bedroom and makes his way toward the bed, crawls on his knees to get to Phil lumped in the center under a giant white comforter.

“Aren’t the grooms not meant to see each other the night before the wedding?” Phil asks, tries to go for teasing but his voice is a touch too shaky.

“I think we can stuff that rule if we’re staying in the same room, don’t you?” Dan responds, sliding out of his shirt and pushing his bare feet below the duvet, ticking toes against Phil’s shins. Tactile and close, he knows that’s what Phil likes when he’s feeling anxious. His touch is grounding, he’d told Dan that once early on, soft hands and a sweet mouth, warm words and lingering laughs pressed against skin that make Phil forget that anything bad exists in the world.

Phil folds his arms together, lets himself be enveloped against Dan’s chest. He forgets, sometimes, when the worrying gets like this, that it’s okay to reach out for help. That the things he tells Dan he can do, are OK for him, too.

Dan waits a long time. It’s several minutes of him gliding his palms across the planes of Phil’s back under his shirt, kneading the tension from his shoulders, and Phil doesn’t want to sleep without talking this out. But he’s losing the battle of staying awake, the repetitive motions like calm crests of waves against his mind and he feels himself falling, down down down, nearly into sleep when he hears Dan speak.

“Did you know I asked your mum if I could marry you?”

Phil’s shocked awake, stiffens in Dan’s arms before he pulls back. His eyes go comically wide, darting back and forth between Dan’s own. “What??” is all he can manage, high-pitched and incredulous and practically shouting in the dark room.

Dan winces. “You don’t have to yell, fuck’s sake, Phil.”

“What do you mean you asked my mum?” Phil charges ahead. “You know she loves you. My dad too, obviously. Not to mention I’m over thirty years old and don’t need my family’s permission to marry someone.”

“Okay,  _ asked _ is the wrong word,” Dan laughs, hands up in a truce, “I told her I was thinking about it and I wanted to know what she thought.”

“Did she thank you for finally making an honest man out of me?” Phil teases.

“ _ Oh, Daniel,”  _ Dan swoons, complete with a freakishly accurate Northern accent and spot-on imitation of Kath,  _ “I’m so happy. Phil’s going to be so happy.”  _

Phil bursts out laughing, can’t contain it, sweet as the story is Dan’s really ruining the moment with that impression. “And my dad?”

“ _ Well, son,”  _ Dan continues, same accent but pitched significantly lower, gruff and gravelly,  _ “You’ve been a part of this family for so long now, this seems like a logical next step.” _

Phil’s laughing so hard that tears gather in the corners of his eyes. “That’s my dad, a real romantic.” 

“He was sweet. He told me how nervous he was when he married your mum.”

Phil turns on his side properly, props up on an elbow and looks at Dan’s profile. “Nervous?” His dad had always seemed like the pillar of stoic strength, friendly and welcoming but a stereotypical British father who didn’t show much emotion if he could help it. 

Dan nods, rolls back a bit and puts his arm behind his head as he gazes up. “He said he’d bought a ring and carried it around for like six months or something before he asked your mum, that every time he thought a good time came up he’d lose his nerve.”

Phil pauses, rolls on his back too so they’re side by side, parallel lines of shoulders and thighs and knees touching, staring up at the ceiling. It’s mental to think of his dad as some nervous young person, a younger man than Phil is now carrying around a ring in his pocket for half a year and putting off asking his mum to marry him.

He doesn’t know how long he’s lost in thought until Dan takes his hand, tugs him a little to bring him across his chest again. 

“We should sleep,” Dan murmurs softly, hand gliding across the soft skin of Phil’s arm stretched across his chest. 

“I don’t think I can.”

Dan pulls back, unwinds his arms to hold Phil’s face with his hands. He kisses at the crest of his cheek bone, the dip below his eye that’s soft and small and gets wrinkled whenever Phil laughs. Dan lets his mouth drift lower, trek a path across Phil’s blushing cheeks to connect to his lips, soft kisses between shallow, silent breaths.

Phil doesn’t let it stay sweet for long. They’ve had this unspoken hiatus on touching each other this past week, and Phil knew what was making him so antsy the moment Dan slid out of his shirt and crawled into bed with him. 

He lifts up out of Dan’s tight embrace, cages his arms around Dan’s head as he slides a leg across Dan’s thighs under the duvet. Dan welcomes him eagerly, not breaking their deepening kisses and squeezing handfuls at Phil’s hips.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I said we should sleep,” Dan mumbles against Phil’s mouth, sucks in a breath between them when Phil gets a hand past his waistband. 

“Do you want to stop?” Phil asks, pressing insistent bites against the underside of Dan’s jaw, teeth and tongue working gently at the soft skin at his throat. He feels Dan’s neck clench, a hand coming up to grip in Phil’s hair. 

“Fuck you, Phil,” Dan says with no heat behind it, spreads his thighs so Phil slides between them, keens. “You’re lucky I’m marrying you tomorrow or I’d break up with you right in the middle of this bed.”

_ Marrying you  _ sends something surging through Phil’s heart. An electric current, a shock that radiates out to the tips of his fingers, his toes as they curl in pleasure, the ends of his hair. Suddenly he wants to scream it out loud, the love he feels and the way it envelopes him entirely, the unbearable elation and how there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe it.

“I am lucky,” he confesses finally, mouth soft and kisses softer, promises pressed in a line down Dan’s bare chest. He aims for the sternum, slightly pitches right, landing over Dan’s heart. “I’m lucky you found your way to me.”

“So am I,” Dan whispers, lifts Phil’s head gently to kiss him again. “I’m lucky you didn’t think I was an awkward stalker and answered my fanboy DMs.”

He’s grinning and Phil laughs out loud, falling against Dan’s chest as they roll themselves across the bedding, limbs tangled and mouths kissing anywhere they land. 

Morning will come soon, and with it, a new chapter in their shared life. But for now, the night is theirs.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Matilde, their wedding coordinator, is incredibly beautiful in person. Cascading, wavy black hair and wide, friendly hazel eyes that sparkle when she’s talking excitedly about something. She’s barely five feet tall and has a commanding voice that echoes across the grounds when she shouts at hotel staff in fast-paced Portuguese.

“So both of you are not nervous at all, right?” Matilde says in her lilting Portuguese accent, singsong and beautiful and devoid of any sarcasm at all which makes Dan and Phil look at each other - then her - then each other - before she starts laughing. “I’m joking! Just kidding.” Dan tries to will his heart to start again and Phil looks about ten shades paler than normal.

There’s a bit of time before the ceremony begins so Matilde offers to take them around to the side, behind a drawn curtain setup in plush green grass next to where the guests are seated.

“They won’t be able to see you,” she promises, pointing at the slit in the fabric, “Go ahead and take a small look if you want. It will maybe help with the nerves.”

She offers a small smile, patting each of their arms before she takes her leave. Suddenly, and for probably the first time today, they’re left alone. Behind yards of cream-coloured fabric blowing in the light breeze off the sea and away from prying eyes, Phil can hear the muted murmurs of their guests taking their seats. There’s a small band set up off to the side, a couple of acoustic guitars and a hand drum, playing soft music that intermingles with the light chatter of their friends and family.

Phil closes the curtain and does what he does every time he needs reassurance. He reaches for Dan.

His hands sweat as they hold tightly against Dan’s dry ones. He wants to say something meaningful but he feels his throat tighten when he looks up into Dan’s eyes, cool-toned brown, calm and collected and not at all nervous. 

“Dan, ten years ago, I didn’t know…” 

Phil trails off. It’s a wave of emotion suddenly, a highlight reel of their ten years together playing in his head, a map stuck with pins that hold memories in each of their points — Rawtenstall, Wokingham, Manchester, London, Blackpool, Portugal, L.A., Jamaica, Florida, Japan, Australia, nearly the entire world, twice — all culminating down to this place, last night, this morning, right now. 

Dan looks at him a long while before he speaks, takes Phil’s other hand in his own and drops his voice low enough so it’s shared only between them.

“I did. I have always known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Even before I met you.” And Phil feels transported back, months ago, his exact words given back to him right when he needed them. “Is that too cheesy or weird or too stalker-ish?” Dan’s grinning, shrugs, chuckles a little. 

He’s so confident. Phil can’t look away, just feels his hands gripping Dan’s fingers tighter. He wants Dan to know he’s here, present and listening and in waves of doubtless love, never going to falter.

Matilde hoovers on the outside of their space for a moment, before she leans in and gently touches their elbows, hesitant to interrupt them. Somehow all the private time they thought they had left is gone and suddenly — “Dan? I need to take you around the other side now so we can get started.”

They’re going to enter from opposite sides and that means this is where they part, even just for a moment.

“I love you,” Phil says, blurts it out and nearly shouts it, feels it come out of his mouth unconsciously like Dan’s about to be taken away from him forever.

Dan gets that serene smile on his face a lot, people may be surprised to know. They call it  _ fond  _ or worse,  _ heart-eyes _ , but Phil’s seen that smile change shape as the years have passed, from newness and excitement into comfort, something like familiar and intimate and  _ home. _

He steps away from Matilde, quickly, a moment, just a moment — “I love you, too,” Dan presses to Phil’s lips, kisses him gently and lingering. Phil feels the smile, watches it pull away and get whisked around the curtain with a wave.   
  
  
  
  
  


 

They’d opted to walk themselves down the aisle, starting at the back of the clearing behind their friends and family. When the music starts and they enter from opposite sides, they meet at the center aisle and thread their fingers together as equals. They walk side by side, as they have for years.

Phil takes a glance at their handful of guests — his mum in the front row, openly dotting at the corners of her eyes with a tissue handed to her by Phil’s dad, Martyn and Cornelia next to them, hands twined and smiling wider than he’s ever seen, Dan’s mum catching Dan’s eye and letting a watery smile break her happy tears.

So many people that have shared a part of his life are here. Family from near and across the country, uni mates he can’t believe he’s kept in touch with for so long. Friends from online, the ones who’ve always known Phil as half of Dan and Phil, the ones who probably could’ve predicted this day would come before either of them ever could. 

The music drops slowly into silence, and Phil hears everyone take their seats, the sound of the waves crashing against rocks below them, the officiant to his right clearing his throat. He looks around and there’s eyes looking back at them, hundreds of pairs like he was so worried about. 

But Phil looks up, directly into Dan’s eyes, and doesn’t see anyone else.

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/kay_okays) and [tumblr](http://kay-okays.tumblr.com/tagged/*mine) xoxo
> 
> thank you for all the nice things you say about my fics. <3


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